Tampa Bay Lightning

The sprint to the 2005-2006 NHL season is on, and while Jay Feaster wines and dines the agents of the Lightning's current stars attempting to lock them up to long term deals I will take a look at what hopefully will become the next generation of Lightning stars and the 2005 Entry Draft.

[url=http://www.nhl.com/news/2005/07/230562.html]NHL.com is reporting[/url] the NHL draft lottery and CBA ratification have been pushed back a day from the previously rumored date of Thursday the 21st to Friday the 22nd.
Canadian sports network TSN [url=http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature.asp?fid=7314]will announce the results of the lottery with a special presentation at 4pm Friday.[/url]

Tampa Bay Lightning center Eric Perrin was named to the AHL Canadian All-Star team today. Perrin, playing for Hershey during the lockout, leads the Bears with 37 points on 13 goals and 24 assists through 43 games.
Perrin, who was a late-season call-up for the Bolts in 2003-'04, also appeared in last year's AHL All-Star game, registering two assists. He had one assist in 16 appearances for the Lightning, including 12 post-season games.
Congratulations to :E

Tampa Bay Lightning center Brad Richards returned to his parents' home in Murray Harbor, PEI, on Thursday after being released from a Philadelphia hospital where he underwent surgery to repair a severe tear in his lower abdominal wall.
Richards, who won the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP during the Lightning's Stanley Cup run in June, had been playing during the lockout for Ak Bars Kazan in Russia. He returned to North America in December after only 7 games (2+5) with the team, citing pain in his hip and abdomen. It was originally diagnosed as a sports hernia.
Richards expects to be able to begin working out again by late-March, which would be just in time for the home-stretch if the NHL's lockout gets resolved (yeah, right).

Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Nolan Pratt has signed with EV Duisburg of Germany's Second Bundesliga for the remainder of the season. Pratt will join Die Fuchse (that's "The Foxes" to you and me) in a couple of weeks, at which point there will be only about a month remaining in their season. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how the CBA negotiations are going, you're thicker than a Hardee's half-pounder. Pratt's been keeping in shape playing pickup with Cory Sarich, Chris Dingman, Dave Andreychuk and Johnny Grahame at the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon.